Nicholas DeForest is a Principal Research Associate in the Grid Integration Group (GIG) of the Energy Storage and Distributed Resources Department (ESDRD) and affliated with the Electricity Markets and Policy (EMP) group. His research focuses on using optimization to inform investment and operations decision-making for Distributed Energy Resources (DER). He works as a core developer for the optimization tool DER-CAM (Distributed Energy Resource CUstomer Adoption Model), helping to expand the model's capacity and applying it to a variety of research questions. As part of the vehicle-to-grid (V2G) pilot project at LA Air Force Base, he is working to develop a DER-CAM module to optimize the charging of electric vehicle fleets participating in grid ancillary service markets.

Additionally, he works as a member of the Emerging Technology Assessment (ETA) research team, where his work focuses on simulation, life cycle and market analysis of early stage building energy technologies being developed at the Molecular Foundry at LBNL.

He received a M.S. degree in mechanical engineering from the University of California – Berkeley in 2009 with a focus in combustion and a B.S. degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois – Urbana Champaign in 2007. His graduate research centered on chemical kinetic modeling of high-efficiency engine systems. He has been employed at LBNL since June 2010.